This Is How We Reach Our Detroit Destiny

According to Politico.com, this time the conservatives are about to start a financial crisis:

“The prevailing view: When Congress returns in September, sabers will be rattled and threats will be hurled. But then, as usual, Washington will grind out a crummy deal that keeps the federal lights on and avoids a disastrous default.”

Not true this time:

“The House GOP is hopelessly fractured on spending strategy. Senate Republicans who might otherwise broker a deal face primary challenges that make compromise potentially deadly. Other Senate Republicans are jockeying for 2016. And congressional Democrats have no appetite for any bargain — grand or otherwise — that cuts entitlement spending.”

The story says many other things. My hunch is that most of it is merely designed to scare Republicans into caving on the issues. But let’s look at that sentence again: “… Washington will grind out a crummy deal that keeps the federal lights on and avoids a disastrous default.” That is misinformation. Change one word and we get much closer to the best hope Politico.com holds out for us: “… Washington will grind out a crummy deal that keeps the federal lights on and DELAYS a disastrous default.”

The constant scaremongering is simultaneously a form of anesthesia to reality. In Politico’s story, the only real threat is that Republicans might start a crisis or hurt the economy if they try to force the Democrats to make spending cuts. The fact that we are headed for a huge financial crisis that everyone should want to avoid is not even mentioned.

And, of course, RINO Republicans are happy to lend a hand:

“Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney grew so concerned over rhetoric from Rubio, Cruz and others that he used his first significant post-2012 speech to urge Republicans to back down from the government shutdown rhetoric. ‘We need to exercise great care about any talk of shutting down government,’ Romney said at a fundraiser in New Hampshire on Aug. 6. ‘What would come next when soldiers aren’t paid, when seniors fear for their Medicare and Social Security, and when the FBI is off-duty?’”

The rhetoric about shutting down the government may or may not be wise. (Though, if we really would put the FBI off-duty, then I think the option is attractive, not frightening.) But Romney isn’t acknowledging the real question. The real question is “What would come next when soldiers aren’t paid, when seniors fear for their Medicare and Social Security” because we’ve provoked a full blown financial crisis by continued debt-fueled spending? Romney, like the Politico writers, and like the media in general, assumes there is no looming financial disaster that is threatening to engulf the United States and the world.

Politico.com dives into the big lie head first: “Should Washington grind to a halt this fall, it would come once again as the economy is on the cusp of a period of stronger growth.” What total insanity. Our “growth” is simply the result of the Federal Reserve pumping new dollars into the country. It doesn’t add up to anything. It certainly is never going to produce real growth.

Real growth will come with deregulation and a removal of the fear of financial catastrophe. A bankrupt government that has no means of survival other than the magic of printing money is the real drain on the economy. But the Democrats, the media, and many Republicans are closing their eyes to the real danger.

And they are pretending that anyone who wants to stop the coming collapse is a threat to the economy.